When My Sad Soul Forgot Its Pride
by o-seastarved
Summary: Georgina, Chuck/Blair. Post-finale, Georgina remains in the aftermath, and in the calm manages to reignite Chuck and Blair's dwindling relationship--if only to watch its final destruction. *interpretation of some spoilers*
1. Chapter 1

_Summary: Georgina, Chuck/Blair. Post-finale, Georgina remains in the aftermath, and in the calm manages to reignite Chuck and Blair's dwindling relationship--if only to watch its final destruction. _

_Spoilers: Slight spoilers, including Georgina's religious infused return, Nate and Blair's relationship, and the Gabriel conflict. However, they are all my own interpretations of the bits of information we've gotten._

_Author's Note: So I've gone and started another fic. And this time it's a multi chapter one. I hope to finish it before the slew of April episodes start on the 20th, but it might be wishful thinking. I'll still be updating TWAH, for those of you reading it. Huge thanks to Lynne for the basic premise that my muse ran away with, and to Nes for the encouragement and suggestions for POV. Please read and review and tell me what you think! I'm aching to know.  
_

* * *

His limo was traveling upstate and the foliage seemed to become increasingly overgrown and wild with each passed mile. Branches were bare, but the twisted ways in which their bark churned and dug and latched, like leeches, was all that required the forest to seem thick and heavy with brush.

"Mr. Bass, we should be pulling up in about fifteen minutes."

"Thank you, Arthur," he replied and the window slithered back up and sealed the barrier between the front and back once again.

Chuck tilted his tumbler and forced the ice cubes to clink together within their bath of malt liquor. This was going to work. This had to work, he thought.

Serena was living such a fantastical life set in denial and false happiness that even Blair was alarmed at her behavior. Her new boyfriend, Gabriel, was the picture of class and society, and yet, there was something off-putting about him. Something that was too quick, too focused—even more so than most rich, European society men. Of course, Serena wouldn't notice that, no one expected her to, but it was in the way that she was so quick to defend him when Blair raised the most minute concern, and when Chuck insulted him, that made it clear she was under his direct influence. So much so that Serena had even stormed out and refused to answer her phone for seventy-two hours. Page six had become her oasis—from Dan, from Rufus and Lily, and she was rejecting everything that was her former life, and Gabriel was behind it all.

A background check confirmed that he was no saint, but there was nothing to condemn him except shadows of murky possibilities. Serena wouldn't listen to her brothers' red flag and threw his manila folder in the trash.

There was no way to convince her except to prove it. And yes, Serena had come to matter this much.

"We're here, sir," Arthur announced.

It was time to unleash the dragon.

Paperwork, a fake ID, a forged doctor's note and even a notarized legal clause regarding the rights of an eighteen year old were presented and all was let loose. The air smelled like cedar and the iron wired gates creaked open at Camp Watanooga.

"_I have everything I need to do this. I just need to know that you're with me on this," he said. _

"_Of course I am. I just don't see why it has to be her. I'm sure we could have recruited someone local," she said haughtily. _

"_Scared, are you?"_

"_Yeah right."_

"_She can do it," he said into the phone a little too harshly._

"_But why would she?" she bit back. _

"_I have ten thousand dollars in cash that can give almost anyone incentive."_

"_Except me."_

"_As always, an exception to the rule, Waldorf," he sneered and snapped his phone shut. _

Out of the rusted iron gates and the village smelling of cedar came Georgina Sparks, in the flesh.

In the generic blended fabric t-shirt and regularly washed jeans. In the braided hair and the lack of makeup. In the smile and in the skip to her step.

"Chuck Bass?" she asked, gleefully, and in the true, unadulterated voice of a pleasant surprise.

And then she hugged him.

His throat closed and his spine stiffened.

She pulled back, "Have you been saved too?" And her eyes were wide and innocent and…honest.

Not quite, he thought. In fact, far from it. Though he was about to tell her that he needed her to save his sister.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: I couldn't sleep before I edited this and churned it out tonight. And as a disclaimer, I don't know how angsty or dark I am going to go with this, but my aim is not to torture anyone entirely. I promise! I don't want to scare you off. Also, the title is taken from Emily Bronte's I Am The Only Being. Go read it if you want a little insight into what I'm writing and how I'm approaching it. It's pretty. :)_

_Thanks: Lynne, my incredible beta and Nes, who inspires me to use poetry in my title and to write in POV form. And to both for encouraging me with this thing. _

* * *

It was all over now.

Chuck woke up and felt relief. He exhaled as he remembered Gabriel and Poppy being escorted away by not just the Police, but the Feds. Conning couples were so blazé but at least they had prevented Serena's arraignment, although he couldn't say much for her reputation, which now lay in even more shambles than it already had. Now she was hiding away in the Hamptons for the summer, far from society pages, paparazzi and the condescending social circles of the Upper East Side.

He remembered a time long ago when Blair had told him that he could work for the CIA – if he weren't such a pervert. If he had any loyalties in him they were reserved for himself. And perhaps for…no. Himself. Of course he had familial loyalty now, and he would help Serena through anything, he couldn't have just let her sink deeper and deeper into self-denial and destruction. That wasn't to say he didn't get a certain enjoyment out of the whole process, and he almost felt guilty that Serena's tendency to find trouble around every corner amused him and gave him a new project to look forward to.

The sheets rustled softly next to him, but he barely noticed.

"_You're seriously wearing that hat." _

_Blair glared at him and his smug smile as she slid into the backseat of his limo. Here again, she thought and shivered slightly at the uninvited memory. Her black ensemble melded perfectly with the seat, the tinted hue of the windows and the night sky. _

"_You're criticizing my fashion choices now, Bass?"_

"_You look like a spy from the Cold War."_

"_It's a good thing that's what I need to be tonight, then."_

"_From the 1950's?" _

"_Like you didn't dress in all black for the same reason."_

_It was true. They had both dressed in all black: gloves, hat, coats and all for their venture tonight. They were spies. They spied on Gabriel while their man on the inside provided them with information. It was all very professional. _

_Entirely professional. For the past five nights they had done this, skirting around the city in his limo, dressed to the nines in couture spy wear, and they hadn't yet managed to come up with one incriminating picture of Gabriel. Their source had hinted that tonight was the night, and it needed to be. All of this professionalism and black leather cushioned seats were driving Chuck mad. His jaw had scarcely let itself slacken all week. _

"_Let's just get to business," he managed to sputter out despite feeling as if his jaw were wired shut of its own accord. She couldn't help but notice the muscles flex as he spoke, facing away from her, and she quickly turned her head to look out her own window. _

_A half hour later they were stationary, in the same spot, where they had been told he would be. _

"_We should get out," she said. _

"_Why?"_

"_If anything important does happen, we can't see from inside your sex den of a limo," she snapped. _

_At least standing behind the limo blocked the wind from the north, but not from the west. Blair tried not to shiver, but her nose and her ears felt as though tiny ice daggers were stabbing them. Chuck leaned against the trunk, hands in his pockets and his head down, contemplating his shoes. When her phone rang in her hands she jumped slightly but made no move to answer it. _

"_Aren't you going to get that?" he asked. _

"_My hands are too cold to text."_

"_Could be from—"_

"_It's not," she cut him off and his nostrils flared slightly before he dipped his head back down to the black pavement. _

_Silence hung in the air for long, bloated minutes. _

"_Oh! Oh, quick get down!" Blair whispered harshly and crouched behind the limo. Chuck followed suit at the sheer urgency in her voice before he could question her. "He's there," she said and answered his thoughts. _

"_Where?" he said and tried to strain his neck to see, his hand splayed across the trunk of the car. _

"_Over there." She pointed to her left and he scooted closer to her, inching along the stretch of backside to the vehicle until he could see. His hand rested on the small of her back for support as he creaked even further, bringing his head nearer and nearer to hers. _

_Then he could see. _

"_You should get your phone out," he suggested. She reached into her right pocket and suddenly became all too aware that Chuck's face, his nose, his eyelashes, his jaw, were all entirely too close to her own. And that his hand was on her back, creating tiny sparks of static that coursed through her woolen coat to her skin. _

_He was inches from her. Crouched behind a moving vehicle in the dead of night, he was touching her and she was far, far too close to his face. His breath hitched as her deepening breaths exhaled warm emissions onto him and he closed his eyes slightly at the sensation. He wondered if the same happened to her, because her lashes fluttered. And it was true, the tip of her nose was warmed through and through. _

_Blair gulped, audibly. Her throat was dry. _

"_You should uh—you should…" Chuck began, without pulling away just yet. _

_She snapped out of her reverie and reached quickly for the device. "Yeah," she croaked out, her voice hoarse. "Yes," she corrected._

_They both quickly stood up, her mouth dropped open as she lifted her phone in front of her. _

He looked down at brown curls that rested against the soft cream of the sheets and the way the morning sun matched the two so perfectly. The sheets rustled again, in that crisp way they only do after having been slept in. The body stirred, but no noise came from it, until it turned to face him.

"Morning," Georgina said groggily and smiled at him.

He wished she had remained asleep with her face hidden underneath her waves of perfectly colored hair, so that he could pretend she were someone else. He stared at her, taking in her features. Her angelic face, wide eyes like a doe, full lips.

"I'll call for breakfast," he said and lifted himself off the bed, trying not to seem as if he were hurrying away. He felt her eyes follow him across the room as he reached for his boxers to cover himself. He wasn't ashamed, he was never ashamed of being naked. He wasn't embarrassed in front of her. He just couldn't stand her searing eyes, those almost empty gauntlets of nothing, because he knew she hid herself behind them.

"Black coffee. With sugar," she told him.

She wrapped the sheet around her for breakfast, having padded over to the couch to sit. The material was too clean, he thought, and her right hand wasn't clasping it nearly tight enough as she reached for her food. It slipped slightly, only enough tot reveal the top curve of her breast. He had to admit, she fit the definition beautiful.

And then he remembered the night before.

"_I shouldn't be doing this," she breathed into his lips as she straddled him, fingers working the buttons of his shirt expertly as she kissed him. _

"_Why not?"_

"_I'll totally go to hell," she said, in earnest. _

"_You probably already are anyway."_

_Fingers now found his belt buckl, began to undo it and whipped it out of its loops with a classic whoosh. His breathing was deep and heavy. _

"_Good point. God wouldn't take me now." She crawled backwards on the bed as she peeled his pants off of him. "Jesus might, he's more in the flesh and blood, if you know what I mean," she added with a glint in her eye and the old Georgina smirk he knew mirrored his own so well. _

_He watched her as she began to crawl back towards him . "Religion gets you hot and bothered now, G?"_

"_Different from the last time you had me." He flipped them over so that he was now hovering over her, his hand hard in her hair. _

"_Last time it was tequila and lime and you're hardly a virgin Mary anymore."_

"_But the sisters at the commune told me Jesus had given me renewed chastity now that I've been saved. Like a gift. So I guess you get to take my virginity away from me twice now, Bass." _

_Her tone was syrupy and sweet but not altogether sinister like he'd remembered. Her propensity for fun hadn't been lost on her, even though she'd been well on her way to a part lobotomy by means of brainwashing by the time he had picked her up. Maybe he'd saved her from being sucked in to religious fanaticism, but was that a good thing or a bad thing? _

_Now it seemed to slowly be coming undone. Everything seemed to be coming undone as he fucked her. _

Chuck scratched the nape of his neck. She was eating plump raspberries and alternating between a mimosa and coffee.

"So, uh, what are you going to do now?"

Her fork clinked harshly against the china plate.

"Well, I…I don't know. I don't know where to go. It's not like I can travel in any of my old circles now."

"You have the ten thousand dollars."

"My parents don't know where I am, my commune will never take me back now that they've think I've escaped."

"You don't seriously want to go back to that place," Chuck grimaced.

Georgina's browed furrowed, and for once she looked quizzical. As if she were trying to compartmentalize her different selves. Her religious fervor had waned substantially since she rejoined the Upper East Side, and now she lay somewhere in between herself, the new and the old Georgina. She shook her head in delayed response but her eyes were far off, looking deep into the threads of the couch.

"I don't think," she began and lifted her head up. "I don't think I have anywhere to go."

"Ok." Chuck supposed he'd grown a habit for looking after lost girls with hearts of steel. "Ok."

* * *

_R&R please? Tell me what you think. I want to hear from you. _


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: I have come to realize I have a habit of writing very succinctly, in pretty short chapters. I'm working on upping my word count, but sometimes it just won't do. Please read and review, and thank you for all the beginning support I've gotten so far. It's entirely inspired me. Which means lots more writing, this and other fics, this weekend after hell week!_

_Thanks: Lynne, Nes and this chapter is specifically dedicated to Meghan - here it is! _

* * *

There was a good possibility that brunch was the single most satisfying meal one could ever sit down and eat. The implications of the meal, rather than the meal itself, gave it such a personality of contentedness; sleeping in was acceptable, but not so much that it wasted the day, and leisurely conversation and an appreciation for detail honed in on the senses and focused the mind. Brunch on a bright, but not yet hot, early summer day was the epitome of serenity.

She woke at nine to dress and greet the day. She heard birds chirping outside her window and the sheer curtains let the sunlight enter in a diffused wash of soft light. She texted Serena in the Hamptons to check up on her, as well as Dorota to arrange a car to the restaurant and thought how pleasant everything felt.

When was it last she had felt right? When was it last she looked forward to the calm of an elegant meal, mimosa in hand?

And yet, later, when she did hold that mimosa in hand, her stomach fell and the carbonated bubbles combined with the acid of the juice churned within her. The air was stagnant and the ambience dull and worn around her.

"Hey. You alright?" Nate asked her and reached his hand out to rest on her knee. His hands were soft but his thumb chafed her and she couldn't help but admire the gentle, puppy like quality that clung to his person.

"Hmm?" Blair turned to look at him, pulled out of her empty haze. "Oh, fine. The orange juice is just a little sweet, I think we should have ordered the fresh squeezed with the Perrignon instead."

"Ok. I'll flag the waiter."

He was adorable, really. When he was angry, concerned, happy, or even confused. A golden boy if there ever was one.

But what golden girl was she? She who relished in social destruction, humiliation and hazing. She who schemed and plotted and enjoyed smiling with a slight smirk to the corners of her lips, and she who was self serving, self indulgent and self loathing. Serena was his missing golden match. When her life fell apart, when she accidentally left a man to die or when she accidentally got arrested, her natural inclination to come out of everything unscathed kicked in and she still was too doe eyed and unassuming to deserve to be blamed. He and Serena probably should have ended up together, anyway.

"Uh, excuse me, sir. Miss Waldorf would prefer the mimosa with the fresh squeezed and the Perrignon, instead."

"Of course, sir. I apologize for her disliking."

"No, no need. She thinks it's too sweet. It sometimes makes her teeth ache. I'll stick with the same." The waiter left their presence and Nate smiled gleefully at her.

Sure, her sensitive tooth hadn't acted up since she was fourteen—it was long gone—but he was a sweetheart for remembering.

"Thanks honey," she commended and speared a sliced nectarine.

The ringing of both of their phones interrupted her reaching for another.

Blair rolled her eyes and reached into her bag. "Ugh, alright Gossip Girl, what do you have to tell me about Serena that I already know today?"

Opening her phone, she could hardly hear the clanking of the silverware of unassuming diners around her as her ears filled with reverberation like a tub of warm bath water overtaking her. Everything was distant and far away, like Nate's quick gulp and tightening jaw covered up by a quick smile and bashful laugh.

She read the text hurriedly, some smarmy riddle, in order to ignore the picture before her. No, she paid no attention to the crisp cut of his Nantucket red suit, or to the way it matched her headband, or how her arms were encircling his neck as his laid gently on her hips. She certainly didn't pay any attention to their lips meeting in the middle, the slightly parted and picturesque way they melded together.

She blinked several times and looked up at Nate, the best of smiles on her face, trying to think of something dismissive to say, but was oddly at a loss for words.

Nate broke the silence with a clearing of his throat. "Wow. Uh…Chuck and Georgina. Never thought that would happen again."

"Well, I wouldn't say it's uncharacteristic. When the King and Queen of slut are in the same vicinity…" she trailed off and reached for her fresh drink. "It doesn't matter, anyway. Now that Gabriel is taken care of." She took a healthy sip.

Minutes passed as the two ate in silence. They shared a chaste, but not altogether quick kiss outside of the restaurant when they left.

Even in the confines of her own room, Blair would not allow herself to react in any way to the news she had received. She would not get angry, she would not cry. She hadn't the right, in any case. Her phone, however, insisted on mocking her, laughing at her, daring her to look.

She would not concede.

The only thing to do was to throw her phone across the room. With a crackling sound it smashed against the wall and fell in four separate, dead pieces on the ground.

"_I…I don't know if I can do this."_

"_Are you kidding? Of course you can, G, it's practically your idea of foreplay," Blair snapped at her. Georgina's wide eyes and obnoxiously modest new persona were getting on her last nerve. _

"_Dressing like you?" she asked. _

"_Why did you dress her like that?" Chuck asked, arms crossed in feigned boredom. _

_Blair glared at him. _

"_She needs to gain entry into his inner circle, and be believable. She could dress like a cocaine addict, a born again Christian, or she can actually succeed."_

"_Hey!" Georgie protested. "I dressed well as a cocaine addict!"_

"_True," Chuck added. _

_Blair glared at him again. "Will you shut up?" She turned to Georgina, took in a breath because her patience was being tried. "What I meant, Georgie, was that we all know how good you are at lying about your identity. Sarah? You had Humphrey and his home-schooled hipster tumor thoroughly convinced last year. Which I would normally say isn't all that hard, but Humphrey's actually pretty clever. So suck it up and stop whining, you're giving me a headache."_

_Georgina's lips pursed at the condescending attitude of Blair's pseudo motivational speech and she remained silent in hesitation. _

_Blair now inhaled her needed inspiration. "What I mean to say is...Jesus would want you to tap into that inner talent of yours and use it! Why put it to waste?"_

_Georgina caught Chuck's eyes and held them. _

"_You're right! Jesus would want me to do this. Help Serena. Use my talents…" she was convincing herself, and then with a tone similar to the slyness she used to flaunt, like she wanted to project the dubious interworking of her mind externally, she added, "I can be anyone I want to be."_

"_My, my." Chuck eyed her with a knowing smirk. "I think the old Georgina is making her way back."_

"_Good," Blair responded curtly. "She's exactly what we need."_

Blair splashed cold water on her face, scrubbing it clean with face wash that usually required warm water to rinse. But the cool sensation of it, the oddly livening affect it had, as well as the prickle of shock when it hit her pores, was exactly what she needed. Her makeup had suddenly begun to look like cake and a new face was in order.

She idly thought why there must always be a distinction between the old and the new of a person. Why was Serena "new" and why had she herself claimed to be "new" when she had spiraled out of control only several weeks ago? Hadn't everything been deep down within her and just hadn't bothered to release itself until she had lost everything that she reserved for the surface? There should be an evolution to a person, a constant development and a constant change within a person that tweaks him gradually over time. Events, people, timing—all went into the shaping of a human being. But was the framework that was there to begin with always going to be there?

Would she ever be an entirely different person than from who she was to begin with? Was Georgina? Clearly not. Was Chuck? Clearly not.

Despite everything—_everything_—that had happened, the skeletal framework of his being had not changed. It couldn't be changed. And for that, she thought as she looked at herself in the mirror, feeling the same about herself, she couldn't really blame him.

But _because_ of that, in fact, she could blame him. Because she had a skeletal framework also.

Storming out of her bathroom, determined and self-aggrandizing, she unlatched her door and yanked it open with might.

"Dorota!" she yelled. "I need a new phone!"


	4. Chapter 4

_Thanks: Lynne, Nes and Megan_

_A/N: I realize angst and CB with other people might seem like the last thing anyone would want to read right now, but give it a shot? I'd appreciate any and all comments. Thanks! -Air_

* * *

Georgina Sparks loved her name. It hit all the right notes and was just as offbeat and vivacious as she liked to think she was. She had to concede that victory to her parents at least, even if it were the only good thing they'd ever done.

She had a reason to be cheerful today. It was her first full day of security since Chuck Bass had agreed to let her stay until they could figure out what her next move would be. And since he essentially ran a company worth a billion dollars, and was just as cunning and as shrewd as she, she had actually felt contented to leave all of the planning to him for the time being.

And for now, New York was home and it was calling.

She sauntered down the streets of the Upper East Side, Soho, Williamsburg, sipping an iced black coffee with two packets of sugar. Her oversized sunglasses blocked out anyone from seeing her while leaving her at the distinct advantage of seeing them perfectly clearly. Just as she liked.

But something was new this time around; something was different and baptized, reborn on these streets she was walking on just as she always had.

The thing was she knew that Jesus loved her. She had learned that through and through. He had forgiven her for her transgressions and she had gone through the necessary process of becoming one of his children, and she supposed she kind of loved him for letting her do that. But if she had never loved another person in the flesh, how could she really love him? He had to forgive her for that; he was an understanding guy. God might be pissed, but Jesus knew the plights of the human soul better.

Her human soul, which was somewhere in limbo between peaceful assurance with heaven and with the natural inclinations of her personality. What being saved had taught her above all else was how to save herself from her own self-destruction. She knew she could do that, but what she didn't know, was if she could help provoking the destruction of others.

Jesus would understand. He had to.

She reached for her phone and held it in the opposite hand from her coffee, selecting a number on speed dial. The cold, bittersweet liquid seeped down her throat refreshingly as she listened to the ringing on the other end.

"Georgina," his voice was wry.

"Chuck, hi!" she squealed in a pitch too high for his ears to handle. "Listen, I'm walking in Soho, and I was thinking, how about Nicaragua?"

"Central America? Really? If drug lords and dirty drinking water is to your liking."

"I'm tired of Europe. Too stuffy. Too many people to run into."

"On the entire continent?"

"How about Argentina or Chile!"

"Possibilities. Or an island somewhere far away. Sri Lanka or Mauritius."

"Sri Lanka is still recovering from the Tsunami, Bass, and do I daresay you're trying to exile me to a far away island in the Indian Ocean?"

"Meet me for lunch, we can discuss your options," he said and the line went dead.

Georgina smiled to herself. Playing a fugitive expatriate might be fun.

Sitting next to Chuck Bass in a restaurant was something a girl could get used to. The impeccable service, ordering off the menu, the chef's greetings, the number of camera phones, open and pointed in her direction by a number of young socialites.

But so far there had been nothing worth capturing or recording; the talk was all business. The business even led them straight into his limo upon departure. They sat on opposing ends of the vehicle, facing each other as he approached her like a troubled client.

"The question is, what will you do with yourself once your funds run out? I don't exactly see you slumming it in a foreign country."

"My parents will never wire me money and they've all but cut off my trust fund now that I've gone missing again," Georgina explained dispassionately.

"You can't convince them? Show them you've changed?"

"Have I?" Georgina asked suddenly. What was this concept of change and could she apply it to herself? If being saved meant she'd changed it was only on the surface. She's changed her ideology and her way of living, but had she changed as a _person_? She'd yet to find that out.

"Does it matter? Act the part."

"Even if it were…even if it's true, it'd take much more than honesty – let alone my chameleon capabilities that you and Blair seem to think I have – to get my parents to look at me any differently than they always have. They have an idea of me. That I'm practically Satan's child who can do no right in the world."

She noticed that he hesitated in his response when his previous comments had practically been spit out in haste. He seemed to be thinking—and hard, as his jaw tightened and his nostrils flared slightly. Or maybe he'd been distracted by something she'd said, because he was looking down at his shoes then.

"Chuck?" she asked cautiously, unnerved by the uncomfortable silence.

When he didn't answer still, she grew curious and slowly shifted herself across the floor until she was next to him on his seat. She looked up and could see the traffic moving backwards now, creating the oddest sensation of movement.

He breathed in deeply. "I know what it's like to have your parents designate you as a failure and refuse to accept you can be anything else."

She didn't know why—in fact, she hadn't the faintest clue as to why her hand reached out to rest on his knee. But it did, and the touch was heavy with dead, uncertain weight.

"What I mean to say is…" Chuck began and paused to gather himself. "I understand you, Georgina."

His eyes met hers and she reeled back from their darkness at first. Hers had always been so vibrantly blue that she'd never been able to match the physical darkness that he was conveying now. His emotion overwhelmed her.

She recovered quickly, because surprise never did look good on her, and she smiled at him sweetly.

"Terrifying, isn't it?"

She let out a tiny laugh and even as she reassured him and connected with him on whatever plane of human bonding they were on, she knew that no one could really ever understand her. No one ever had, and though he came close, he miscalculated, searching for something in her that didn't exist. And in time, he would figure it out. Figure out that all she had ever been was a fraud, a shadow of someone else who was never really there, whereas, he'd always been Chuck Bass.

"Kiss me," he whispered, and his eyes held a particular glimmer of desperation in them now.

"Why?" she asked, unused to this kind of intimacy, this kind of honesty and raw emotion.

"Because I don't want to be alone anymore."

_Georgina came flying down the steps, as fast as her heels would allow her. Finding the specified limo parked further down the street, she left the townhouse behind her and crossed the street spritely. _

_Waiting, as always, against the side of his limo, and wearing his characteristic smirk, Chuck remained unaware of her approach. _

"_Chuck!" she yelled out to him._

_And suddenly she was in his arms, not having slowed down as she reached him, and his hands grasped at her hips to steady himself._

"_I did it!" she exclaimed in excitement. "We did it!" _

_Unexpected, uninvited, yet soon accepted. And as they lingered, the rush of excitement—of victory—never fell flat, and they both knew what had been accomplished. _

_And then she kissed him._

Not quite like she was kissing him now.

Then, it was a fast, hurried rush of hot pumping blood and impulsivity that motivated her, and now she found herself responding with fervor to his pathetic plea.

Grabbing his face between her hands, lips smacking, deep and sad.

He pulled away, panting.

"Why the sudden change of heart this time around, Chuck?" She asked, because she genuinely wanted to know. She assumed the past few weeks had been a charade, their night together a consolation prize, and now she was no longer sure if he despised her or not. "For all of five years I couldn't have been more of a disease to you."

"No change of heart," he rasped and tried to reach for her again but she pulled back.

Realization dawned on her like a cartoon light bulb. "So I was right, all those years ago."

"No."

"I was." The corners of her lips twitched and her bright blue eyes glimmered. "And you can't hate me for it anymore."


End file.
